Monday, March 24, 2008

The omnipresenceYour OmnipresenceIn all the four directionsYou are the grand instrument of light

This showering brilliance cleaves the darknessYou're yonder, You're beyondOh this light! What a luminescence!noor-un-ala

I ask, is there anyone else other than you?And when I didIt silenced the dark, blushed the light away to shyness

I asked the birds, where's the sky aboundI asked the silence, then where is the sound?From flowers, leaves, colours came this ever-blooming songnoor-un-ala

I raised the veil that revealed what else but your splendourI raised a step towards where else but your havenI raised an eye only to what else but your face

In the hum of the bumblebeeIn the tinkering of the bangles

In the body and soul of loversIn the eyes of the woman separated from her belovedIn melody and in symphonyThere is just youYou only Younoor-un-ala

In the heart's crazy ponderingAnd mind's ceaseless wandering is youSo lift me away from these will youLife has forever been a mysteryand has been to this dayTo empathize, is there a need?If empathized, who's got the need?Those who have, some say its loveAnd some say its prayer

Oh this spell of passionate frenzyYour grace is only the only wayAnd that is Love.

The way you waited a few moments I won't forgetI shan't forget all my lifeWhen you said, looking away"You shall weep in my memory"I laughed a strange laughBut you didn'tYou had a secret in your heartWhy didn't you tell me

Without youNo one shallReveal this secret to meWithout youWhat druid has the cure to my illsToday I found a note of yoursIn which you had scribbledA Varis Shah coupletUpon reading which a teardrop fellWhat was locked in my eyesWas revealed today

That these tears of mineWill be kissed by no one else but youThat, till then these tears of mineWill wither in the dust.

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Anti-China protests have gone bloody with bad images on TV with the Beijing Olympics at the corner. Its even on Euronews...and now the Europeans are also concerned.

(pic. Miss Tibet 2004 Tashi Yangchen)

I have been with Tibetans and they are nice people, however there were a few issues which I found a bit unnerving and hard to imagine.To get the fuller image of what 'atrocities' that China has committed on Tibet, I get the better picture here. China has built the Lhasa-Qinghai rail route which is the world's highest rail platform train. Chinese culture has so much to learn from, especially from their rich civilisations which have en-grained thousands of years of research and development. Though communism has its own negative points still China's growth rate been a sustainable above 10%. Every nation has shortcoming, but it depends on the administrators to take the right decisions.

Some segments of the media say that the Kingdom of Tibet was a free country in the past and no other country has a right to take over like this. However, my point is that the problem with Tibet is the ambiguation of international borders to be known as the TAR (Tibet Autonomous Region) since the CHinese invasion. There is one more argument to this point that some historians refer to Tibet as being a part of India. American movies have always made Villians out of China due to their own benefit and interests.

So as a citizen of India, whom do I believe or where do I go? Should I be just another by-stander in this whole issue which is creating waves across the world?

I read the book KORAIts by Tenzing Tsundue.He is the so-called flag bearer of protests in IndiaThis guy calls himself as an Tibetan with an Indian heart. He stays in Dharamsala and also calls himself a Mumbaikar.But still thats an emotional angle to things however when one looks at resolving international affairs one should take an administrative stand.Only when china attacked these poor and peaceful people, they came to their senses and started shouting for independence.what was happening before?did no one try to proclaim anything about Tibet?Don't you think that this is a false baseless war of loss of identity with the enemy being no one and themselves left to be blamed?

For instance, Lets consider myself as a tramp, a nomad.I have no fixed address.I roam the world and call it my home.And I am "where I lay my head is home" types.But do you think anybody will recognise me this way?I need an ID, a permit, a visa, a nationality.

The time before China attacked, Tibetans were happy living like nomadic peaceful tribes I don't see anywhere that has mentioned Tibet as an independent nation though there is a mention of a kingdom. To that I have to say that India has had its own share of kingdoms which were deemed 'princely states' during the Raj. We have our own issues here.

Rules and laws are need to attain equilibrium from chaos, or else it would end in a way we see that its happening now. Tibetan administrators should have thought of it in ancient times. It would had protected the affected and the vulnerable.

There was a time when shangri-la was considered heaven, an obscure paradiseon earth. Decades later we discovered Tibet.

They should have voiced an independence claim for nationhood eons backinstead of now creating a fracas every now and then infront of the Chinese embassy in Delhi. More so, worsening matters when the Indo-Sino relations are just about to bloom and flourish. The bloodshed has already started. Thats a complete display of stupidity. The Holy Dalai Lama is but a crippled megalomaniac turned politician and Tsundue is a rockstar, climbing embassy floors with the Tibetan flag in hand to protest against visiting Chinese dignitaries. Is this monkey business going to create a solution when you are dealing with someone really powerful?

I was in Dharamsala, and there you will find Tibetans reluctant to speak properly with you as if it was their country and region. Interestingly their attitude towards expats are very friendly. Are they forgetting the fact that if India weren't to take a soft stand for Tibetans, they would not had succored refuge in any other country?Inspite of all this way the circus and furore by these 'peaceful' people in Delhi which in itself is the capital of a country known for advocating peace and restraint?

(pic. - A serene Mcleodgunj street, at my visit a month ago)You cant speak Hindi...or you show you can't,You cant speak English or at least you show you can't,and still you live as a free being in our country.and you act like you are someone alien. Why this attitude?Dharamsala is mini Tibet and in the beautiful heart of India.There is another huge Tibetan camp in the world situated in Dharwar, Karnataka, with over 50,000 in population. Allow me to humour, would they become the new extended Kingdoms of Tibet?

Tsundue talks about torture on Tibetans by Chinese, like inserting of electric rods in vaginas of tibetan women. Now listening to that will I become an extremist like Tenzing?

If I were a Tibetan, I probably would have. Well these stories are definitely heartrending but then you should look at the problem more at the administrative level keeping in mind the psychological impacts. Like for instance, the major reason for the Abu Ghraib and Guatanamo Bay prison tortures by the American army was a direct repercussion of Bush's prolonged military regime in Iraq. Fresh American blood is turning crazy living in Iraq dust for almost a decade now.

Finally I would just like to say that when you can't protect your identity in your own country...then I don't believe it is any use to cry hoarse under the belly of the beast.This is all that I have to collate to all my known and unknown Tibetan friends.